Who will speak for Zimbabwe's blacks?

ZWNEWS

28 December 2002

Breaking news direct to your mailbox

Visit www.zwnews.com - the world's leading website on Zimbabwe

SW Radio Africa : In Zimbabwe, tune in to the short-wave broadcast at 6145 KHz in the 49m band. Outside the broadcast area, you can listen to SW Radio Africa over the internet at www.swradioafrica.com . Broadcast times are between 6pm and 9pm Zimbabwe time daily.

In this issue :

Fuel supplies still uncertain - News24
Holiday death toll falls - IOL
Food gap still large - IRIN
Rural desperation - IRIN
It's the companies' fault - News24
Who will speak? - WTimes

From News24 (SA), 27 December

Zim fuel crisis eases, supplies uncertain

Cris Chinaka

Harare - A severe fuel shortage that almost brought Zimbabwe to a halt this month is starting to ease, but oil industry sources said on Friday supplies remain uncertain due to a foreign currency crunch. The three-week fuel shortage spilled into the Christmas holiday this week, leaving motorists and commuters stranded as Zimbabwe grapples with its worst economic crisis in decades. Industry sources said a week of emergency imports had started to ease the shortage, which has become the most graphic evidence of an economic meltdown critics blame on President Robert Mugabe's government. Thousands of motorists had been forced to spend days in fuel queues as the country ran dry of petrol and diesel. A week ago the government announced it had ordered fuel worth over US$15m from Kuwait and South Africa to ease the shortage, and that other fuel imports would continue to help stabilise the situation. "The situation is getting slightly better in terms of supplies," one fuel filling station manager said on Friday. "We have been getting some fuel deliveries for five straight days, and you can see there are more cars and buses moving on the roads now. "But the problem is that these supplies cannot be guaranteed as long as we have the kind of foreign currency problems that we have as a country," he said.

Zimbabwe has been running out of foreign exchange thanks in part to an official exchange rate well above that found on the black market, and decreasing agricultural exports as its key farm sector lurches into crisis. Zimbabwe Energy and Power Development Minister Amos Midzi and officials from the state oil procurement agency NOCZIM were not available for comment on Friday. Zimbabwe's fuel supplies have been erratic since 1999 due to a foreign currency squeeze. Midzi has said that a barter fuel deal with Libya to provide 70% of Zimbabwe's fuel needs has run into problems because Zimbabwe has been unable to supply the beef, sugar and tobacco it agreed to pay for the Libyan oil imports.But he said the government was working on salvaging the deal as it seeks ways out of what has become the worst economic crisis since Zimbabwe gained independence from Britain in 1980.

The economy has been in recession for four years, and is expected to shrink by about 10% in 2003. Nearly half the country's 14 million people are threatened by severe food shortages which Mugabe has blamed on drought, but his critics point to the state seizure of white-owned commercial farms for redistribution to landless black people. Mugabe denies mismanaging the economy and says the country is a victim of sabotage by domestic and foreign opponents opposed to his land reforms. But critics of the government say Zimbabwe's foreign exchange policy, which has kept Zimbabwe's currency pegged at Z$55 to the US dollar over the last two years despite a black market exchange rate of some Z$1 700 to $1, is a key part of the crisis.

From IOL (SA), 27 December

Fuel shortages cut road death toll in Zim

By Angus Shaw

Harare - There was at least one silver lining in the cloud of fuel shortages plaguing Zimbabwe: The holiday death toll on the nation's roads fell by about half, police and the state media said on Friday. Since the weekend, 42 people died in vehicle accidents, down from 80 during the same period last year. Police attributed the reduction to fuel shortages that left cars waiting in long lines outside gas stations instead of driving on the roads during the holiday and kept buses from their traditional routes ferrying tens of thousands of urban workers to their rural families. Hard currency shortages have caused sporadic fuel shortages for nearly three years. Supplies dried up almost completely last week, causing the worst transportation disruptions since late 1999. The Ministry of Energy admitted it failed to deliver fuel to meet holiday demand after promising to speed up imports. Ambulances and emergency services were running, but some operations of repair crews of the main electricity utility were curtailed.

Twenty of the reported road fatalities were on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, the state Herald newspaper reported. Four people died in the worst crash when a truck rammed into stationary vehicle and caught fire near the central town of Gweru on Tuesday. Many motorists spent much of the holiday in fuel lines or lines for buses that didn't show up. Only a few gas stations in Harare sold fuel Friday to long lines of motorists. Meanwhile, many automatic teller machines ran out of money, state radio said on Friday. The 500 Zimbabwe dollar bill, the largest denomination, has been in short supply, a fact also blamed on hard currency shortages that cut imports of special paper used to print the bills. New lines for corn meal, the staple food, bread, sugar and milk formed as food stores re-opened on Friday. The sugar shortage has forced bottlers of soft drinks to shut down some production facilities.

Zimbabwe is suffering its worst economic crisis since independence in 1980. At least 6,7 million Zimbabweans, more than half the population, face starvation in coming months because of a sharp drop in agricultural production blamed on drought and the government's seizure of thousands of white-owned commercial farms. The state Central Statistical Office estimated inflation rose this month to a record 175 percent, up from 144 percent in November. But analysts say real inflation is much higher, fed by a brisk black market in essential commodities that sometimes sell for more than 10 times their fixed government prices. The unofficial hard currency exchange rate is about 1 500 Zimbabwe dollars to the US dollar, while the official rate is 55-1.

From IRIN (UN), 27 December

Food gap still large

Johannesburg - Large cereal gaps in Southern Africa will be difficult to fill before the end of the current marketing year, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) warned in its latest report. "Of particular concern are Zambia and Zimbabwe. Zambia has made the least progress towards filling its cereal gap, having received less than 10 percent of its import requirements. Food aid imports to Zambia have been slowed by the government ban on GM [genetically modified] maize. According to available data, Zambia currently faces a cereal gap of 617,000 mt," FEWS NET said. Current commercial and food aid import plans, even if they were they fully met, would fill only 63 percent of this remaining gap, although it was unlikely that these plans would be fully achieved based on past import performance, the report added. In Zimbabwe the situation was worse. "With a 907,000 mt cereal gap remaining, Zimbabwe faces the greatest challenge. Current food aid import plans, if realised, would reduce the gap to 500,000 mt. Although government plans to import an additional 336,000 mt, there is concern about government capacity to import this quantity due to foreign exchange and other constraints. Even if all planned imports are received, which is considered unlikely by many analysts, Zimbabwe would still face a sizeable cereal gap of 163,000 mt," FEWS NET warned. Meanwhile, the situation in the rest of the countries affected by the regional food crisis appeared to be better, FEWS NET said. "Although reported imports to Malawi have so far filled 54 percent of estimated needs, there remains a sizeable gap of 262,000 mt. Current import plans, if achieved, would reduce the gap by only 44 percent. "Preliminary information from Mozambique indicates they have already received more than enough imports to fill their cereal gap, with additional commercial imports still expected. Lesotho has imported more than two-thirds of its requirements, and Swaziland nearly 59 percent," FEWS NET noted.

From IRIN (UN), 24 December

Poverty driving rural Zimbabweans to desperate measures

Johannesburg - The poverty that has accompanied Zimbabwe's economic crisis has driven many desperate rural people to prostitution, robbery and gold panning to survive, the latest Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) report said. "Cross border trading with neighbours Mozambique, Zambia and Botswana is also on the increase as households try to find any way they can to make ends meet," the report said. With maize and wheat being sold at eight times the government-set price, and oil, salt and rice prices escalating, income generating opportunities were diminishing for rural households, FEWS NET said. The demand for casual labour, which provided one of the few sources of cash, had declined in 90 percent of rural villages while 96 percent of villages reported a decrease in the flow of remittances from urban areas, researchers found. As a result, 80 percent of rural households reported eating wild foods they did not normally consume, which increased the risk of poisoning.

Preliminary results from a recent assessment trip by NGOs found that the government-controlled Grain Marketing Board (GMB) and food aid sources were supplying only about 40 percent of food needs in the rural areas, with the remainder being met through parallel markets, wild foods, gifts and bartering. Prospects were not much better in urban areas where workers battled inflation and many did not even receive their traditional Christmas bonus. The government's decision to provide relief by freezing the prices on a long list of commodities saw prices shoot up on the parallel markets due to shortages and demand. The Zambia Post reported on Tuesday that the Zambian government had lifted an anti-dumping import ban on certain commodities that speculators with foreign currency were buying in Zimbabwe and selling cheaply in Zambia. A set of controls would prevent further "dumping", the newspaper reported. In addition to current food shortages, comparisons with previous planting patterns and harvests, combined with predicted rainfall patterns and a moderate El Nino, were causing concern over next year's food security situation.

The total area under cultivation for food crops was less than 50 percent of the 1990s average and for cash crops like tobacco, a vital foreign currency earner, it was less than 25 percent of the average, FEWS NET said. Over the past year, foreign exchange shortages have caused disruptions to fuel supplies and the import of fertilisers and agricultural chemicals. Agricultural production was also adversely affected by a lack of seed and fertiliser, and a lack of energy among farmers too malnourished to plant effectively. The land redistribution exercise had also created an environment of uncertainty in the farming sector. "If things do not improve, food security will once again be of major concern in 2003-2004," FEWS NET said. It urged the government to review its grain distribution system and said the procurement and distribution of food aid needed to be stepped up urgently to address the unmet needs of rural households.

From News24 (SA), 24 December

Acute seed shortage in Zim

Harare - Production of the staple food crop in Zimbabwe, where eight million are facing famine, is threatened by an acute shortage of maize seed and fertiliser, according to a report published on Tuesday. The Agricultural Research and Extension Services (Arex) said in their latest crop and livestock report, cited by the state-run Herald newspaper, that "the problems associated with seed, fertiliser and draught power shortages persist" throughout the country. But Agriculture Minister Joseph Made accused commercial seed producers of holding back inputs in a bid to undermine President Robert Mugabe's controversial land reform programme. "We are aware that some companies are holding on to the seed crop because they do not want to complement the government's efforts under the land reform programme," Made told the Herald. "All these are efforts meant to frustrate the ongoing land reform programme," he added. Zimbabwe, which is threatened by one of the worst famines in memory, with more than two thirds of its 11.6 million people at risk, is almost half way through its current agricultural season. Zimbabwe is the worst-hit among six southern African countries also facing famine. Foreign aid agencies say the problem here has been exacerbated by disruptions to agriculture on white-owned farms acquired by the government for resettlement of new black farmers under a chaotic land reform programme.